


People Are Beginning To Talk

by soulshrapnel



Series: Playing With Fire [5]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Bystander POV, Gossip, Kink mentions, M/M, arguably sexual harassment in the workplace does, chapter six will be sad though, from a certain point of view this entire fic is kink mentions, like a lot of kink mentions, linked vignettes, no actual kink happens onscreen, silliness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-26
Updated: 2020-05-14
Packaged: 2021-02-19 00:20:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 11,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22902154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soulshrapnel/pseuds/soulshrapnel
Summary: Darth Vader and Grand Moff Tarkin are, apparently, dating. Everyone but the two of them thinks that's pretty weird.(Aka: by popular demand, the one where all the other Imperials hang out and gossip about Vadarkin.)
Relationships: Wilhuff Tarkin/Darth Vader (referenced only)
Series: Playing With Fire [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1307006
Comments: 84
Kudos: 107





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This will probably be much funnier if you've read the rest of "Playing With Fire," but if you'd rather not read 250k words of weird angsty porn then it should still be intelligible on its own. All you really need to know is that Vader and Tarkin are together and it's kinky as hell; the rest will be explained as we go.
> 
> Each chapter will focus on a different set of characters, with one exception.

Vaneé watched out the third floor's modest windows as the civilian transport shuttle carrying Grand Moff Tarkin lifted itself from Fortress Vader's landing platform. With the deceptively langorous grace of most shuttles, it turned in the air, expanded its wings into full flight position, and glided away across the molten plains.

He exchanged brief glances with Giana and Kal, Lord Vader's other human servants. Both were as old as Vaneé, or nearly so; both had worked here long enough to share the fear that Vaneé felt now.

"Well," said Kal, trying to lighten the mood. "We can take a look at the betting pool-"

"Nobody bet against Tarkin," Giana said tiredly. "None of us."

The servants' quarters, which filled several floors, were more modest than the rest of the fortress. Their ceilings were only as high as those of a typical residence, and their walls and decor were much plainer than the red-black extravagance that ruled the upper and lower floors. Much of the space on these floors was taken up with practical functions - kitchens, laundry, storage - but there was enough left over for the three house servants and the Royal Guards to live in tolerable comfort. There were modest private quarters for the three of them, a shared room for the guards, and a reasonably well-appointed shared fresher. This room with the windows was their common area, where they rested and socialized when their master did not need them. Which, honestly, was most of the time.

Kal looked out the window speculatively at the space where the shuttle had been. "How about bets for if he ever comes back?"

"Not taking it," Giana said immediately.

Grand Moff Tarkin had arrived at this fortress three nights ago, not on official Imperial business, but - whatever polite circumlocutions the servants might have used when speaking to him aloud - for a date. It seemed bizarre to Vaneé that anyone would want to date a ravening cyborg death machine in a lava fortress, but people bent that way, apparently, and Tarkin wasn't the first. Lord Vader didn't indulge often, but one of his few pleasures in life was to find the people who bent that way and discreetly have his way with them.

But the visits didn't usually end in quite this way. On this particular date, a kind of lava monster not commonly seen in this part of Mustafar had decided to attack the Grand Moff when he ventured outside. He'd barely survived. Lord Vader's personal guests had been injured before, but usually by his own carelessness with the Force, not like _this._

There had been no rational way for the servants to predict such an attack. But Lord Vader wasn't known for his rationality. He was more lenient with his house servants than with military officers, but Vaneé still remembered the abrupt brutality with which he'd disposed of Kal's predecessor, three years ago, over something that equally wasn't his fault.

That was why everyone's nerves were on edge now. Either Lord Vader would soon burst in here, demanding that the servants account for their failure to alert him of the monster's proximity, or... well, or he wouldn't. Lord Vader was impulsive at the best of times; he might harass the servants, but he was just as likely to get distracted and take out his frustrations elsewhere. Still, nobody was going to relax until they knew they weren't a target.

"Vaneé?" Kal asked, not one to let a topic go easily. "You talked to the Grand Moff more than the rest of us did. What's your bet?"

Vaneé frowned to himself. When he'd spoken to Tarkin, the Grand Moff had been pensive in a way that suggested, not merely a fling for the thrill of it, but some actual emotional attachment to the Dark Lord. But that had been before the attack. From what he'd seen of Lord Vader's reactions _after_ the attack, there were emotions running high on that side of it, too. But when Lord Vader's emotions ran high, that only made him more dangerous. It was difficult to say whether all that attachment would induce Tarkin to return sooner, despite the mishap with the monster - or if it would only serve to make Lord Vader's tantrums worse when he did not. Vaneé didn't have enough information to judge that yet. But he knew who would.

"I'm abstaining," said Vaneé, "until we hear from Em-four."

He inferred more than saw Kal's resigned shrug behind them. After living at close quarters for so many years, the house servants had all memorized each other's habits. "Sensible. Takes some of the fun out of it, though."

There was a stir from the table in the far corner, where both the Royal Guards had been playing cards with each other. Vaneé turned to look at them. The Royal Guards officially shared the common area with the house servants, and everybody tolerated each other politely, but Royal Guards were only stationed here for rotations of a few months at a time. They couldn't truly understand the close unspoken rapport of the house servants. They were included in the servants' games anyway, when they wanted to be; but often both groups simply left each other alone. Live and let live.

"You're all such mice," said the bigger guard, a burly man in his early forties, with the friendly disdain common to soldiers. "Put me in. Three tokens says the Grand Moff's not coming back."

The servants' betting pool never involved real money. They were paid well by the standards of servants, but there was only so much one could do with real money around here. Instead they had devised a small economy in which imaginary tokens could be exchanged for petty benefits. Shower privileges, say, or first crack at the leftovers when an especially good meal was cooked for a guest. Tokens could be traded in to call dibs on a duty one enjoyed, like taking a speeder out for shopping and getting what passed for fresh air on this hell-world, or to fob a duty off on someone else. For a sufficient number of tokens, even duties involving direct interaction with Lord Vader could be exchanged - which meant betting well could potentially save one's life.

The other guard, slightly younger and with a scar down the side of his face, shook his head. "I don't see why we're even betting. He got almost burned to death, didn't he? Who'd come back for seconds after a first date like _that?_ "

"You'd be surprised," said Kal. The lava monster was an unusual situation, but generally it was safe to assume that everyone who was attracted to Lord Vader had a death wish. Suppressed or otherwise, acknowledged or not. Kal noted down the three tokens, made a thoughtful face, then added another note. "Okay, I'm in. Two tokens says he comes back for a second date before your rotation here's over."

The lift in the corner opened, and  M4-R3K, the medical droid they'd been waiting for, chose that moment to trundle into the room. She was nothing much to look at, just a squat little customized 2-1B unit, but M4 held a status here that in some ways surpassed even Vaneé's. Lord Vader had built her specially to look after his daily medical needs. She could provide general care to anyone else at the fortress who needed it, of course; she'd been the one to clean and dress Tarkin's wounds after the monster attacked, and she'd also been privy to any thoughts on the matter that Lord Vader might have cared to voice while he was being put into his tank that night, or taken out of it this morning. If anyone could accurately predict this relationship's future, it was her.

"Hey, guys," she said. "Nice to see you all. How's it going? Tense?"

"Mildly," said Vaneé, turning to her. "How is Lord Vader?"

"I think you're safe," said M4, immediately inferring the question's real meaning. She'd been through this routine a few times before. "He's off in his training room now. Things were really dicey there for a bit, I don't mind telling you, but they seem to have sorted it out. Or at least, he's not that angry anymore. This has been a couple of _days,_ that's for sure."

"Can I interest you in a bet?" Kal asked, proffering the datapad. "Vaneé here is abstaining until he hears your opinion."

"Sure," said M4, although the token system had very little meaning for her. Almost none of her duties could be safely fobbed off on a non-specialist, and few of the humans' creature comforts or duties ever interested her. But M4 was a good sport, and she enjoyed the betting's social side. "What are we betting on?"

"The question at hand," said Vaneé, "is whether or not Grand Moff Tarkin will return in a reasonable time frame for a second date."

He knew her answer before she voiced it. She was so terribly amused by the question that she covered her face with a hand, as if suppressing giggles. An affectation, surely; M4 had no facial expressions, and technically no mouth, and she couldn't laugh even if she wanted to.

"Oh, boy," she said. "He'd better, or we'll have a whole other problem on our hands."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I forgot to mention when I first posted, but since the first commenter asked about requests: if you read the rest of the series and have one, request away! I have a loose plan for this but there's room in it to add things. Can't guarantee I'll do 100% of the requests but probably most.
> 
> Either way, comments are love <3


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From "Sea Life of Scarif":
> 
> _"Did you really commandeer an entire Super Star Destroyer just to ferry you here?"_
> 
> _"I did not commandeer it. It is mine."_
> 
> _"You are utterly ridiculous." Tarkin broke away, turning toward the beach house._
> 
> In canon Vader _technically_ doesn't have the _Executor_ or its crew until just before ESB, but I forgot that when I was writing the aforementioned fic, so now I'm just going to run with the error.

Captain Piett had to admit that shore leave on Scarif wasn't bad. There wasn't much to do - the planet was not, after all, built for tourists - but the weather was balmy and the views were good. The Imperial Security Complex contained a reasonably good seafood cafeteria half-open to the air, letting in a pleasant salt breeze from the nearby shore. The steamed snapshells in their bed of kelp were delicious, and because he was off duty, Piett had ordered a mild alcohol to go with them, something distilled from the insides of the local areca nuts. After supper he might sit at some vantage point outdoors and watch the ocean's waves, a rare moment of peace.

Given the lack of viable nightlife on Scarif, most people who'd been allowed down through the planetary shield were now dining with the same people they usually ate with in the _Executor_ officer's mess. In Piett's case that meant Admiral Ozzel and General Veers. He didn't usually mind eating with them, but everyone felt awkward and uncomfortable today, because of their reasons for  coming to Scarif in the first place.

Darth Vader had ordered the _Executor_ to ferry him to this planet for a few days of - as Vader had put it -  _personal matters to which I must attend alone._ A shuttle crew had brought him down, not anywhere near the Security Complex, but to a secluded island halfway across the planet, where he'd been greeted - according to the shuttle crew - by a casually-dressed Grand Moff Tarkin.

In other words: Piett was ninety-nine percent sure that Lord Vader had brought his entire nineteen-kilometer-long flagship, with its crew of thousands, all the way to Scarif, for no other reason than so he could go on a date.

Ozzel and Veers both looked ninety-nine percent sure of that as well, and they weren't going to let each other forget it.

"I wonder what they're doing right now," said General Veers, peering pensively into his drink. He'd gone with something violently blue, and he'd had considerably more of it than either Piett or Ozzel.

Piett did _not_ want to picture whatever Lord Vader and the Grand Moff were doing. He'd served under both of them - he'd transferred a few years ago from one of Tarkin's counterinsurgency fleets to the _Executor_ \- and while he felt a great respect for both men, neither was the sort of person he'd want to imagine in a compromising position. More importantly, if anyone here spent too long picturing it, Lord Vader would notice them picturing it when he returned. Then there'd be hell to pay.

Nothing had prepared Piett for working in the presence of Darth Vader. Everyone knew Lord Vader's reputation, of course; everyone knew that a berth on the _Executor_ meant perilous missions alongside a bizarre and inscrutable sorcerer of astonishing power. Everyone also knew it meant a high death rate for officers, not only in battle but at Lord Vader's own hands when a mission failed. Many junior officers crossed their fingers at nights and prayed to whatever gods might listen that they would never be assigned to this squadron. Many others dreamed of it, angled for it specifically, enchanted by the risks and rewards. Most military officers, at some level, were in it for the glory, and on a good day, that was precisely what service aboard the _Executor_ entailed.

But, in addition to the ruthless tactics and strangulations, Lord Vader was simply _erratic_. He often seemed only to be half-listening to what his officers said - except when a topic caught his interest, and then his focus became truly obsessive. He was ascetically disinterested in shipboard life, never seen at meals or recreation or making anything resembling small talk; yet he was petulant and impulsive in ways that were diametrically opposed to asceticism. He frequently used Death Squadronfor missions that didn't fit in to the Empire's official military schedule, nonsensical or astonishingly self-centered or both. This so-called mission to Scarif wasn't any more nonsensical or wasteful than many other things Lord Vader had done in the short time Piett had been here.

Everyone on the _Executor_ agreed, though most would only state it furtively, that there was something a little bit  _wrong_ with Lord Vader. Many looked at him with secret disgust, or simply with terror. Piett saw it a little differently. At times like this he often watched Vader's brooding on the bridge of the _Executor_ and hoped that the Dark Lord had someone to talk to about whatever his problem was. Piett was neither professionally qualified nor brave enough to be that person, but he hoped one existed.

Veers was looking at Piett and Ozzel as though he expected them to have some witty answer to his question.  Piett stabbed at his kelp-covered plate with his fork. "If they're on a date, then we already know the gist of what they're doing. In the unlikely event that it's not a date but is some other top-secret, personal thing between extremely high-ranking members of the Empire, then it's in our best interests not to know. I for one would much rather think of something else."

Admiral Ozzel made an aimless gesture with his own fork. He'd ordered the pan-seared sunfish steak, and he'd been tearing into it with an enthusiasm undiminished by the circumstances. "I wonder... well, you know. If he's into choking _that_ way."

Veers looked speculatively into his glass. "If he was, would that make you feel better about it, or worse?"

"Could we _not-_ " Piett protested.

"We know he's at least into something," Ozzel pressed. " _Those_ rumors have been going around for a long time."

Piett couldn't deny that, much as he might wish to. The association between Lord Vader and kink had been something people whispered about for years. At first there hadn't been anything substantive to the whispers: little more than _look at all that black leather he wears._ Mere wishful thinking on the part of certain repressed young officers, Piett had thought. But eventually Lord Vader had been caught in the midst of an assignation at some discreet little dungeon for people who were inclined that way, and then no one had been able to deny it anymore.

And if Lord Vader bent that way then, by association, Grand Moff Tarkin must, too. Oh dear. Piett wanted to take some of the nearby salt water and scrub out his brain.

Veers seemed more amused than disgusted, though, and he took Ozzel's bait. "Yes, I've heard those. Which of them do you reckon submits to the other?"

Veers' own meal was some sort of rice roll containing slices of something that might be a fish. Piett dearly hoped it was a fish, because it glowed the same bright blue as his drink, and a fish that happened to glow that color was the least alarming of the imaginable options.

"That's what's bothering me," said Ozzel, sounding genuinely plaintive. "I can't figure it either way. Look at Lord Vader in that armor - he has to wear it for life support, doesn't he? You can't really _do_ anything to him through armor like that, and he can't take it off. So there's no way he could possibly..." He paused for an awkward second, and Piett was briefly, vindictively pleased that Ozzel couldn't bring himself to say the word _bottom._ "Do anything else besides topping. But I've met Grand Moff Tarkin and that man is terrifying. I can't picture _him_ doing anything else but topping, either. Where does that leave them?"

"Who knows?"  Veers popped another unsettlingly glowing rice roll into his mouth and chewed. "But I don't think you can tell just by an outward persona.  Some people act indomitable at their work, only to turn into docile kittens in the bedroom. They want a break from all the pressure of command. Some are the reverse. I've met shy little milquetoasts who turned into quite the sadists, when one gave them half a chance. And some people switch."

Piett stared into the depths of his last remaining snapshell and hoped that the cafeteria's duracrete floor would swallow him. He did not want to picture any of these scenarios. And had no intention of asking how Veers had become so knowledgeable, because there was a very obvious possible answer, and that answer was not something Piett wanted to know about _any_ of his co-workers.

"Well, if you know so much about it, what do _you_ think?" Ozzel snapped, irritable now; the Admiral never liked to be contradicted.

Veers leaned back in his chair. "As I said, it's hard to know for sure. But if I had to place a bet, I'd say Tarkin's the top. After all, there are ways of going about kink that don't require striking someone's body directly. It can be much more heavily psychological than that. And for all the posturing and murdering, I think Lord Vader has a more submissive streak than most people realize. Haven't you ever seen the way he kneels for the Emperor?"

" _Every_ high official kneels for the Emperor," said Piett, lurching back to horrified attention. "It's protocol. Tarkin does it too; all the moffs do. It's how a high official shows respect, which _you_ are _not doing_ at this moment, sir-"

Veers just raised an eyebrow back at him and let the silence grow awkward.

It was true; everyone knew that high officials had to kneel to greet the Emperor. But everyone also knew that the respect Lord Vader paid to the Emperor, willingly or otherwise, went beyond that. All three of them had seen Lord Vader wait for the Emperor on bended knee, during the Emperor's rare visits to the _Executor,_ bow his head, and call him _Master._

This wasn't necessarily a remarkable thing. Lord Vader was an ex-Jedi, after all, and the Jedi Order had used the language of masters and apprentices very liberally. It didn't have to be anything more than a show of respect in the Jedi ways to which Lord Vader was accustomed.

But Piett had heard the whispers that sometimes went through the rumor mill about this, too. And they were the sort of whispers that one _never_ repeated aloud. He knew that instinctively. Talking about Lord Vader and Grand Moff Tarkin, or giggling about Lord Vader's presence in that other establishment, was already dangerous; but _this_ was unthinkable if one wanted to live.

Ozzel, who apparently lacked Piett's sense of self-preservation, leaned towards Veers in horrified fascination. "Do you mean to say Lord Vader and the Emperor-"

Piett pushed his chair back and abruptly stood. "I'm feeling ill suddenly, sirs, if you'll excuse me."

"Don't be a prude, Captain," Ozzel called after him as he rapidly walked out of the cafeteria. "We're just having fun." But Piett did not bother to dignify it with a response, not until he was fully outdoors with the sand beneath his boots. Piett was going to take the rest of his shore leave alone.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am once again belatedly adding Rogue One to the list of fandoms. We had a Lava Castle Of Bullshit chapter, a Scarif chapter, now it's a Krennic chapter, literally none of this ever would have happened without that movie and I don't know why I keep forgetting it.
> 
> I have also retroactively changed the rating here from Teen to Mature, not because this chapter is any spicier than the last one, but because when you take the innuendos in Chapter 2 and the ones here and add them up it just starts to feel like A Lot to me. Honestly I don't know how to rate anything but I feel better playing it safe. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

"What do you _mean,_ Tarkin's out for the weekend?" Director Krennic roared into the comms console. "This is important. Project Stardust is the most important project in the Empire's history. If he can't even answer a damned holo-call-"

"Is it an emergency?" said the long-suffering aide who stood in miniature, holographic form before him. This one was female and in her forties, and her graying hair curled around a lined, disapproving face. She didn't flinch at Krennic's yelling, of course. None of Tarkin's aides ever did.

"Well, of course it isn't. Otherwise I'd have escalated to the Emperor by now." Krennic didn't actually have any direct line to the Emperor, but he could pretend he did. "It's just that the life support testing for the Death Star's upper levels is finally complete, and I need Governor Tarkin's official sign-off on the test results before I can bring people on board. Three hundred thousand officers, you know, it takes non-negligible time to set them all up there. I know the governor doesn't want any unnecessary delays, or he says he doesn't."

The aide regarded him, owlish and unimpressed. "Be that as it may, I'm afraid you've caught the governor at a bad time. As is the privilege of a moff, he's made some modifications to his schedule in the last few months. He now takes three days off every three weeks in order to see to personal matters and refresh his mind. During such time, he is to be contacted only for emergencies. He will, of course, review all new communication when he returns."

"Personal matters? That's nonsense. _I_ don't get personal time; I'm stuck out here constantly in the ass end of the galaxy. What does he need personal time for?"

At that question, Krennic heard several of the officers behind him - who were supposed to be seeing to their own consoles but who, of course, seldom did - snickering behind their hands.

The aide's expression didn't change. "As I said, sir, he is entitled to the time to see to personal matters and refresh his mind. Your service to this project is valued, and the Grand Moff will review it as soon as his schedule permits."

"You bureaucrats are all the same," Krennic growled. "Delay this, delay that, and then you blame me when the project's behind schedule. Fine, take your document, then. And tell him galactic superweapons don't build themselves."

"As you say, sir," said the aide. The connection closed.

Krennic turned on his heel to face the Star Destroyer's bridge crew. Many were staring at him, curious or wary, as they often did when he suffered a loss of temper. But there was an extra edge to some of their expressions today, the same ones who'd been giggling before.

"What are you looking at?" he demanded.

"Sir," said a corporal at one of the neighboring comms stations, a younger recruit who tended not to know when to keep his mouth shut. "It's not you we're laughing at. You know what Governor Tarkin's personal weekends are _for,_ don't you?"

"I haven't the faintest," Krennic snapped, more annoyed than ever.

There was more snickering from the other crew at their stations, and some of them edged away from the corporal as if expecting an imminent explosion. But he continued on, oblivious and apparently earnest. "That's what everyone's been talking about lately, sir. He spends them on Mustafar. Visiting Lord Vader. They're apparently, ah..."

The corporal made a gesture which wasn't actually suggestive, in itself - more the postural equivalent of a long ellipsis - but whose implication in this context was clear.

"What?" said Krennic. "Don't be ridiculous. Lord Vader isn't even human."

Darth Vader's origin had always been a matter of great speculation. Supposedly he was some sort of ex-Jedi cyborg who needed the suit for health reasons. But Krennic had met people with artificial limbs, even people unfortunate enough to need breath support, and they hadn't looked a thing like Lord Vader. Instead, the impression Lord Vader made was altogether _other._ A mass of eldritch power and coiled rage, awkwardly stuffed into a human-shaped container, utterly uninterested in anything but the Emperor's own inscrutable goals.

Krennic privately believed that Lord Vader was one of the native creatures of Mustafar. Why else would an Emperor's right-hand man deign to live on such a barely-habitable backwater? Palpatine, by some black art, must have conjured a powerful fire spirit from the molten depths of that world and bound it to his will.  The suit would then be necessary, not because of any injury, but to keep any part of Lord Vader's burning body from making contact with the frigid air.

"I wouldn't know about that, sir," said the corporal. "But it's not as though cross-species relationships haven't happened before. I'm sure they have some arrangement that works for them."

"So they're out there miscegenating in some molten love nest while we do the actual work of the Empire," Krennic fumed. "Is that it? The project's delayed because the Grand Moff is too busy fucking the Emperor's pet?"

The corporal drew back at the intensity of this response. Normally garrulous to a fault, he now looked like he was regretting starting this conversation. "I'm sure... er, I'm sure he'll get to the file quickly when he's back, sir."

"Never mind." Krennic stalked away from the comms panel, letting his cape billow behind him, and to the bridge's big window. He ignored the continued stares of everyone else in the room. "Get back to your work. I won't have anyone slacking here just because the higher-ups are."

Krennic stared out at the Death Star's partially-completed bulk and listened to the sounds of his subordinates awkwardly getting back to work behind him. He pressed a gloved hand to his face, trying to get a hold on his frustration.

All he wanted was Tarkin's attention. Was that so much to ask?

He couldn't even get the mental image of Vader and Tarkin out of his head. It had struck him as physically impossible at first, but of course it wasn't, not if they were marginally creative. In a way it was almost a romantic notion, like something out of the fairy tales he'd heard as a child. A magical creature of purest flame, summoned to the mortal Empire only to fall for a mortal man. Both returning each other's improbable affection, yet tormented by the knowledge that if they ever truly touched, it would destroy them. But perhaps that suit offered possibilities of its own...

Oh, no, now he really couldn't stop thinking about it.

Well, Krennic would show them. When this project was finally complete, he hoped they both came down to see what he'd accomplished without them. Tarkin would regret all the time spent on sexual affairs when he saw the surpassing beauty of the fully operational Death Star, the weapon that could have been his so much sooner.

Or, knowing Tarkin, he'd simply blame Krennic for all the delays.

One of the officers nearer him looked up from her workstation hesitantly. "Sir," she said, in a tone that made some attempt at being comforting, "it's really only a couple of days' delay. Is something wrong, sir?"

"Don't be ridiculous. I am perfectly fine," Krennic snapped. He turned on his heel again and strode out of the bridge altogether.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> P.S. I haven't read the Rogue One novelization but [according to Tumblr,](https://madeofsplinters.tumblr.com/post/190078286145/oh-fun-fact-according-to-the-novelization) Krennic believing that Vader is a magical lava monster is canon.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A wild Thranto appears!
> 
> Partly for 13th_blackbird who said she would expire with happiness if I wrote this pair. I still don't know the Zahn novels really but ENJOY.

Eli Vanto had thought that he'd enjoy being back on an Imperial Star Destroyer for a change. It would be nice to see other humans again, he'd thought. But he'd only been fooling himself. It was nice to see _Thrawn_ again; everyone else on this ship made him want to throw things. The door to Thrawn's office opened, and Eli stormed inside and sat down heavily on his own chair. "Ugh."

The blue-skinned, white-uniformed Chiss fixed his red eyes on Eli. His face betrayed no particular expression. "Lunch was adequate?"

"Lunch was fine, you know. The same shipboard food as always. I really missed ration bars and small-minded gossip. It's fine."

Thrawn quietly set aside the datapad he'd been working on. His voice was low and undemonstrative, as always. "Your return to human society is not going as you'd hoped."

"It's only a temporary return anyway. No big deal."

"Is someone giving you trouble?"

"No, sir." Eli picked up his own datapad and started scrolling through cryptographic routines. His cheeks burned. Nobody had been gossiping about _him,_ or anyone else he cared about; nobody had dared say a word against him or Thrawn or the Chiss Ascendancy where he could hear; but the whole thing embarrassed him anyway.

"Interesting," said Thrawn. "What was the topic of this small-minded gossip?"

"Lord Vader and Grand Moff Tarkin," said Elu, rolling his eyes. "That's _old_ gossip. People were already talking about before I left. And they should mind their own business."

"Perhaps they should." There was genuine curiosity in Thrawn's expression now. Eli didn't have much reason to care about either Vader or Tarkin, really. Tarkin had been helpful to him and Thrawn on a couple of occasions early in their career, but Eli knew better than to mistake that for genuine allyship. And as for Vader, well, Eli didn't know him. Thrawn did, but that was Thrawn's business. "Yet you have some reason to take it personally."

"It's just..." Eli looked away, his jaw clenching in frustration, and lowered his voice. He hadn't really wanted to talk about this, but Thrawn was perceptive, and Eli couldn't hide much from him. " _They_ can get away with breaking the fraternization regs in broad daylight. Why can't-"

He broke off, his cheeks flushing harder.

"I am not a human," Thrawn softly replied.

Eli slumped down in his chair. This was part of what had made him angry in the first place. There was one set of rules for people like Lord Vader, so entrenched in the Emperor's good graces that nothing could touch them. Another for the rank and file. And a third for people like Thrawn, outsiders, people who'd never fit in no matter how far they rose in the ranks. The doctrine of human superiority was Imperial law, even. They didn't even try to hide their bigotry.

"It's not fair," he said.

"I've been to Fortress Vader, you know," Thrawn mused. Eli sat up abruptly, and he clarified, his crimson eyes narrowing in amusement. "Not like that. For _work_. The architectural style is very striking. It's not native Mustafarian, nor anything originating from Lord Vader's home world, nor from the Jedi. I've only seen that style on a few occasions, most of which were ancient ruins, thousands of years old. But another is certain inner chambers of the Emperor's, and even the mask Lord Vader wears bears its traces."

"Yeah?" said Eli reluctantly. He didn't want to dwell on this, but he always liked to hear Thrawn talk about art.

"There is a sense of immense power in those angles and colors," said Thrawn. "Not artistic power; aesthetically they're rather crude. But rather a sense that the original artists themselves were in overwhelming pain. They wished not only to express this but to wield it as a weapon, to bludgeon their viewers into submission. It's very different up close from the merely gothic or macabre. I doubt that any human who chooses to live in such confines, or who has been made to live within them, is capable of much in a relationship but that same bludgeoning. Constant melodrama, constant conflict for its own sake." He looked at Eli sidelong. "Of course, one can conclude the same from studying Lord Vader's battle tactics. Or from speaking to him for five minutes."

Eli smiled back, amused despite himself. "So what's your point, sir?"

"That you have little to envy. The ability to flaunt one's relationships in public is something, perhaps. But genuine respect and friendship - that is a rarer thing."

Thrawn reached out a blue-skinned hand, and Eli took it, mollified. "So are you, sir."


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I DID NOT FORGET ABOUT THIS FIC. I just... got distracted... and then the draft of this chapter was just REFUSING to work properly, to the point where I considered just scrapping it. But I decided I'd give it one more try.
> 
> In the meantime I also got two new (fairly obvious) ideas for chapters so the projected count is up again.
> 
> Anyway: hello naughty children, it's Rebels time

"Thank you for joining us, Captain Kallus," said Mon Mothma, as Kallus nodded to her respectfully in the bright white of the Rebel conference room "I was sorry to hear of the your exposure at the Battle of Atollon. But you should not think of this as a failure, so much as a new stage in your career. You can work with our forces directly now. The Rebel Alliance always has need for skilled agents, and you have already proved yourself to us by delivering valuable information to us time and time again, risking so much."

Kallus ducked his head. He'd never actually been on a Rebel ship before; his previous service as a Fulcrum double agent had been done over encrypted comms, in dead drops and with furtive out-of-the-way meetings. He was having difficulty getting used to how bright everything was; Imperial blacks and grays had been all that surrounded him for so long.

"I'm happy to help," he said. The Rebels had given him a true community and something to believe in. He'd begun his career fighting them, but once he got to know a few, it hadn't taken long to see the rightness of their cause. From his jacket pocket, he drew out a small encrypted data stick. "I knew it would come to this eventually, so I prepared a little gift. Just a few pieces of useful intelligence, non-time-sensitive, mostly locations of supply depots and that sort of thing. But I threw in a few extras for fun."

"Fun?" said Chancellor Mothma, a delicate crease appearing in her brow.

"There are clips that circulate through Imperial internal networks on closed channels," said Kallus breezily. "The officers are always sending gossip back and forth when they're bored, or when their superiors give them cause to want to humiliate them a little. Most of it's just talk, but in the best cases there's a game of trying for picture or video evidence. I figured some of the clips I'd gathered might be as amusing to Rebels as they are to Imperials. Shall I show you one?"

Chancellor Mothma looked dubious, but some of the others in the room were leaning forward, amused and intrigued. A motley group of Rebels had gathered in this bright white meeting space to see his official arrival, only some of whom he recognized. Besides the crew of the _Ghost_ , there were a scattering of others in rumpled flight suits or other uniforms, much more casual than the Imperials' crisp uniformity. It would take him a while to get used to that, Kallus suspected. To silence the little twitch in his mind that said someone - or everyone - was breaking their uniform regs.

Garrazeb Orrelios, the burly Lasat who'd been the first Rebel Kallus ever really got to know, was standing off to the side, a little bit behind him. Kallus was glad for Zeb's familiar presence most of all. He was sure of the rightness of what he was doing, but it was a major transition and he mostly didn't know what to expect. However this meeting went, at least Zeb would be there for him when it was over.

"Come on, let him show it," heckled one of the captains, a lean, black-haired man in a brown jacket.

Chancellor Mothma knew how to read a room, it seemed. She covered her own dubiousness with a wry look and a glance at the man who'd spoken. "In deference to Captain Andor, I suppose we'll see it."

Pleased with himself, Kallus slotted his data stick into a viewer, tapped in a password, and navigated to the file he wanted. There was a particular clip he was especially proud of, not because it was all that secret or incriminating, but simply because of the incredibly high ranks of the men captured. Famous faces were always a crowd pleaser.

"This one is not of any real strategic value," he explained as he lined it up, "if only because it's already an open secret. But think of it as an example. We have equally embarrassing clips of Imperial officers who are less well known, and who knows how those could be used in Rebel hands - for blackmail, for counter-propaganda..."

The holo recording shimmered into existence.

It was a low-quality recording, with more static in the picture than Kallus would have liked, and taken from an angle that didn't show as much as it could. A lot of Kallus's 'fun' recordings were like tha. Really, it was a miracle the anonymous officer who'd taken it had survived getting close enough to record at any angle at all.

The recording showed, from around the corner, a nondescript door in a Star Destroyer's corridor. A tall, thin man in an Imperial officer's uniform strode into view. From the pinched facial features, even in the grainy recording, the man was easy to identify as Grand Moff Tarkin. He briskly tapped in a code to enter the door, and it opened.

Behind the open door, the figure that stepped forward to meet him was Darth Vader's. Kallus heard several suppressed gasps from the gathered Rebels - they had all sorts of reasons to fear this man viscerally, even in staticky, badly-shot hologram form.

A second later, the gasps turned to equally-suppressed chuckles, as Kallus's audience belatedly realized what this was about.

Kallus had personally worked with both Vader and Tarkin during his time as an Imperial. Especially Tarkin. It hadn't been a very pleasant experience, and he might have felt a secret vindictive joy in embarrassing them both, now, in front of everyone. He'd never admit it out loud.

Tarkin walked into the room immediately, smiling as if he'd seen some especially good display of weapons. Before the door could close behind them, he reached out and touched Lord Vader. His arms went all the way around that big, dark, barely-human suit of armor, and he leaned in close with that smile still on his face. Lord Vader's head turned to focus fully on him, and his dark limbs moved a second after Tarkin's, in what probably would have been a reciprocal gesture, had the door not chosen that moment to slide decisively shut. There was nothing lewd in the recording, nothing that would have been inappropriate for children, but it was clearly a lovers' embrace.

The giggles had spread across the room, though not uniformly. Kallus could hear Zeb's low, hearty chuckle somewhere behind him, and that was more of a relief than he had expected. Kallus did want Zeb to be happy with him, on levels he couldn't have fully explained. Captain Andor had covered his eyes and shaken his head in an attempt to conceal a wry smile.

Only Mon Mothma did not look amused.

"Thank you, Captain Kallus," she said politely as the laughter died down. "I am sure that your data on supply deposits will be valuable to the Rebellion. I thank you as well for the entertainment you have provided for us in what can too often be a grim business. But I need to make something clear. When Imperial defectors join us, it is often difficult for them to understand that the Rebel Alliance does not use the same range of tactics as the Empire. Certain acts are simply off-limits to us; were it otherwise, we would be no better than our enemies. Blackmail is among those acts. It is not something we do here. I take no offense, but before you are sent on active duty as a full member of the Rebellion, you will need to receive the introductory ethics training that we typically provide to defectors such as yourself." She nodded to him. "I want to thank you again for your courage in joining us, Captain Kallus. It may be a difficult adjustment, but we are grateful. You are dismissed."

As everyone filed out of the room, and as Kallus tried to find the way to his new quarters, he felt very bewildered with himself. Chancellor Mothma hadn't raised her voice; she hadn't said a single unkind thing. Yet he somehow felt two inches tall in her wake.

He heard Zeb's heavy footsteps coming down the corridor behind him. That was a sound that unknotted some of the muscles in his neck. Zeb, at least, Kallus felt comfortable with. It had been a hard-won comfort - they'd once been enemies - but a lot had happened since then. Zeb was now the closest thing Kallus had here to a true friend, and his blunt, unrestrained manner was strangely reassuring.

To think that Kallus would ever get along with a Lasat, when he'd begun his career so viciously fighting against them. Life was strange.

"Eh," said Zeb, clapping one of his big, furred hands down on Kallus's shoulder. Kallus was rather muscular himself, but the Lasat warrior dwarfed him. "Don't mind her. You did good. Mothma's good, she just can't always take a joke."

"Yes. And that's what it was, clearly. A joke." Kallus's cheeks burned. The vid of Vader and Tarkin had been just for fun, but Kallus really _had_ thought some of the other recordings would be useful for blackmail. He knew some things, like torture, were beyond the pale for Rebels, but he hadn't realized blackmail was on that list. Clearly Kallus did need the remedial ethics training. Maybe that was why he felt small.

"Blackmail wouldn't work against Tarkin anyway. He's weathered worse scandals. Tarkin's the kind of sleemo who stays in power 'til we blow him out of the sky." Zeb mimed a shooting motion, and Kallus couldn't help but grin.

"That seems likely," he said. "I'm sorry if I offended anyone."

"Nah. Don't worry about it. It's just, the thing is -" Zeb's body language was easy and unconcerned, but he gave Kallus a sidelong glance for a moment that Kallus couldn't quite interpret. "Some folks came to the Rebellion from worlds where they were oppressed for the kind of relationships they had. Not _me,_ obviously. I'm here because you Imps tried to kill my whole species. But that's why some of 'em don't have a sense of humor about this stuff, spying on people's private time. Brings up bad memories. Us queers have got to stick together, right?" They came to a halt in front of a door that looked like all the others, and Zeb clapped Kallus companionably on the shoulder. "Ah, here's your quarters. See you around."

Kallus stood there blinking as Zeb cheerfully marched away. He felt like he'd only understood half of what Zeb just said. He'd missed something important in there.

"Wait," he said, as the penny began to drop, "what do you mean, _us_ queers-"

But Zeb had already turned the corner, whistling to himself, and disappeared.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shout-out to ashangel101010 who speculated in a comment ages ago about what would happen if there was a sex tape of vader and tarkin
> 
> this is... not that, nor was it intended to be, but i thought i'd do the shout-out anyway :P


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fweeee. okay this is the Not So Happy Chapter that i warned you about in the tags. i was going for "dark humor" but i might have missed the humor and just ended up with "dark," idk! (though honestly, this is a pretty mild darkness compared to some of the long-winded angst in the other fics)
> 
> in any case: here are further adventures in accidentally having the _Executor_ way earlier than it's supposed to exist in canon.

The rumors came in piecemeal, but quickly. Even for bridge crew like Captain Piett, it was difficult to sort out just what might be happening as the battle-stations alarm blared and the ship burst into hyperspace. They were going, Admiral Ozzel had announced, to the Yavin system. Nothing else was clear.

Nothing, except - the Death Star was in the Yavin system. Lord Vader was there.

The Death Star should not have needed Death Squadron's assistance. The Death Star should not have needed anything but itself. If the Rebels had some counter-attack large enough to threaten it, a few more Star Destroyers would not make much difference. But - the Death Star was in the Yavin system, and there was some emergency, and that was where the news splintered into a thousand incoherent speculations.

The Death Star was under attack. The Death Star needed assistance. The Death Star had been destroyed. How could it have been destroyed? That was absurd. It was so large and well-armored, and practically brand-new. It was designed to be indestructible.

Lord Vader had been aboard. So had Grand Moff Tarkin.

Piett kept to his station, did his work, and tried not to panic. He wasn't one to seek out rumors. But he did keep an ear warily trained on the rest of the room. Whatever this new emergency might be, it seemed wise to try to prepare.

Lord Vader was alive, said the rumors, but wounded. Lord Vader was dead. Lord Vader had left the Death Star in his TIE fighter at the last moment, but everyone _else_ was dead. Lord Vader had made up the entire incident for attention and just wanted the _Executor_ to ferry him somewhere quickly. As for Grand Moff Tarkin: Tarkin was alive, Tarkin was dead, Tarkin had gotten onto a shuttle and left everyone else to die. Tarkin had destroyed the Death Star himself as one of the scorched-earth tactics he was known for.

Piett tried not to do the mental calculations, but there was little for him to do at his post in hyperspace, and the calculations were inescapable. He had served under Tarkin earlier in his career, and he served under Lord Vader now. Could one or both of them truly be in danger? What would that mean?

If both of them were alive, so much the better, though depending on what else had just happened and how much valuable Imperial property had been destroyed, there might still be hell to pay. If both of them were dead, then that obviously wasn't good at all - but the Emperor would reassign the _Executor_ to another good commander soon enough.

Say that _one_ of them had died, however. Say, hypothetically, that only one of those fearsome men had just died and the other survived to grieve him. They were lovers, after all. Everyone knew that by now.

Piett wasn't sure just what a grief-stricken Tarkin might do, if it was Tarkin who'd survived. Maybe nothing. Maybe random castigations and demotions. Maybe a series of especially vicious war crimes which would, at least, _mostly_ be directed at the enemy.

But say it was Vader who lived, and Tarkin who'd died.

Piett could scarcely imagine what the crew was in for, in that case. He wasn't sure if any of them would survive.

The _Executor_ came out of hyperspace in a field of alarming debris.

"Sweep the wreckage for any life signs," Admiral Ozzel ordered. He looked alarmed, but not utterly flummoxed; the transmission from Lord Vader must have already suggested to him what he would find here.

Data collection was Piett's job, and he got promptly to work. There wasn't much left. Not even any Rebels; they'd already wisely evacuated this system. But it was clearly the Rebels' success and not the Empire's. There didn't seem to be much left of the Death Star or its crew of over a million, except for -

There.

"I have a damaged TIE at coordinates point-three delta six with one life-form aboard," Piett announced. "Could be Lord Vader, could be another fighter."

"Where's our tractor beam?" Ozzel barked. "Lock on to that fighter immediately and bring it aboard."

"Yes, sir," said an operator on the other side of the crew pit.

"Send him a transmission. Is he responding?"

"Not yet, sir," said Captain Perro, a few seats over from Piett, who was in charge of such things. "The fighter is receiving the signal, but whoever's aboard is not picking up. He may not be conscious, or he may be choosing not to respond; I can't tell."

Ozzel turned back to Piett. "Can you at least confirm it's Lord Vader?"

"I was working on that, sir. Scanning now." Piett waited anxiously as the more detailed secondary scan took its time to update, the display slowly populating itself with information. "Yes, sir, it's the experimental TIE Advanced x1 prototype. Unless someone managed to steal that one, it's him. I'm afraid the life-form scans aren't giving me much more information. Simply that there's one human aboard, still alive."

"Good enough. Search for other survivors while we bring him aboard."

"Yes, sir." Piett got down to that work, though he did not feel optimistic. The Death Star appeared to have been destroyed instantly and totally. None of the pieces were large enough to contain working life support. Piett's life-form scans, apart from that man in the TIE fighter, showed an alarming field of nothing.

That did not mean that everyone was dead. Some could have evacuated and gone out of the system by now, as the Rebels had. Piett was not going to leap to conclusions.

He kept the scan running, but it seemed clear that it wasn't going to pick up anything else. He found himself drawn instead to the increasingly clear visuals they had on Vader's TIE. Or at least, to the oddly crumpled wreck that was left. The TIE Advanced x1's curled-in side panels had been cracked and distorted, and the transparisteel window at the front of the hull had shattered. There was some carbon scoring indicating damage in battle, but normal battle didn't explain most of this. The cockpit was almost certainly open to vacuum.

What awful Rebel weapon, what secret counterpart to the Death Star's might, could have done this? If not for the inner electronics that showed up on the scanners, Piett might not have recognized it as a TIE fighter at all.

And yet - the rest of the Death Star's wreckage wasn't crumpled in this way. Burned and in pieces, yes, but every other fragment large enough to analyze looked like the result of a simple explosion. Lord Vader's TIE fighter was the only thing showing this pattern. Either it had been the only target for whatever had hit it, or...

Or the damage had come from the inside.

Piett had never seen it happen, but he'd heard rumors. When Lord Vader was most deeply distressed, when merely strangling people wasn't enough, he began to unconsciously warp the world around him. Small objects shattered. Devices creaked as they bent in ways they'd never been meant to. Transparisteel began to crack.

Piett took a breath and let it slowly out as he surveyed the extent of the damage.

"Grand Moff Tarkin is dead," he heard himself say.

It hadn't been loud enough for Ozzel to hear, but Perro leaned over in concern. "What? Are you sure?"

"Fairly sure. Who's been sent to the hangar to retrieve Lord Vader from the TIE?"

"I don't know. A team of medtechs would be the usual protocol. He's most likely wounded in there."

"Ah," said Piett bloodlessly. He could not tear his eyes from the strange, twisted wreckage on the display. Piett did not have the authority to give orders to the medtechs. Even if he did, there was no order he could have given except _be careful and good luck_.

He hoped that the _Executor_ had good records identifying each of the medtechs' next of kin.

Perro gave Piett a sidelong look. "On the bright side, I think you and I both have some weeks of leave saved up."

"As you say." Piett watched as the mangled TIE fighter was drawn into the _Executor_ 's main hangar and, thus, disappeared from the scanners. "Let's hope we both live long enough to use them."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have thought about writing "Vader reacts to Tarkin's death from Vader's actual pov" but my little heart couldn't take it. so instead we have this Bystander POV version and you can imagine the rest!
> 
> there are two chapters remaining and, although they take place chronologically after this one, i am 90% they will not be as sad :P


	7. Chapter 7

Darth Vader entered the room and dropped a clatter of machine parts in front of Dr. Aphra, where she'd been sitting cross-legged, working at fixing a droid. "Put this together. You will need it at our destination."

"Sure, Mr. Lord Vader," Aphra muttered, diverting her attention from the droid. Her quarters on this little ship were cramped; the larger berth was reserved for Vader and whatever weird apparatus he used when he slept. Or meditated? Maybe he didn't sleep. Maybe that part of his brain was so papered over with magic and computer parts that he didn't have to. "Whatever you say, your excellency, Vader, sir."

"A 'yes' would do."

"I'm working on it. That's a 'yes.'"

Aphra knew how to politely address Vader _._ She pretended to forget, because she liked having wiggle room in how she could speak and behave. It kept some of the terror of _this guy is going to try to murder me soon_ at bay.

She did like Vader. It was a feeling she tried not to analyze. Aphra was in the business of big, cool, deadly mechanical things, and Vader checked all of those boxes. If he was going to get her killed on the job, there were worse ways to go.

Besides, if and when he did try to kill her, she had some contingency plans.

She rifled through the pile, quickly assessing what kind of device this was. A gun, with some weird parts, and some fiddly little - hang on -

"This is a handheld proton gun," she exclaimed. "An experimental Tarkin Initiative prototype that never went into full production. Where did you get-"

She cut herself off as Vader turned his head towards her. Sure, Aphra. Run your mouth off. Ask the murder boy where he got the weapons that were made by his dead murder boyfriend.

"You will need it when we reach our destination," Vader said coolly.

"Which is where, again, exactly?"

"Do not pry."

Everybody knew about Vader and Grand Moff Tarkin and the relationship they'd had. Most people thought it was gay and weird, but Aphra wasn't going to judge; she was pretty gay and weird too. And she'd noticed how often Vader's secret resources, like that bloodthirsty little pair of droids, came out of Tarkin's projects. Aphra was a rogue military archaeologist and erstwhile arms dealer, and in that line of work, Tarkin was the guy who'd commissioned all the _really_ cool shit.

It was kind of funny, imagining Vader dating a guy like that. Vader was practically half droid. He had such pretty lights and switches all over him. Aphra could understand the urge to take him apart and see how he worked. If not for the whole _mortal terror_ thing, she could have mistaken it for a good idea herself.

She separated the components of the proton gun into piles and started piecing them together. Vader didn't leave. Aphra was used to that by now. Sometimes he swooped in, gave orders, and dramatically swooped back out; other times he stood in one place like this, lost in thought.

"I get it, you know," she said, to fill the silence. "The whole revenge-quest thing. I've had people I wanted to avenge. _Blam blam,_ blow 'em up, serves 'em right. For most of us, that's a dream, but you're strong enough to actually make it happen. I'm on board."

Vader crossed his arms. "Is that what you believe this is?"

"Are you saying it's not?" She clicked a few more components of the gun together. "I know I'm not supposed to pry, but some things leap out. You've got your droid army, you've got a power base of your own, so the next question is what you want to do with it. And aside from fending off your weird cyborg rivals, we've pretty much been doing one thing. Tracking down that pilot kid who blew up Grand Moff Boyfriend."

Vader visibly twitched. "Do not call him that."

As long as Aphra worked for Vader, the greatest threat to her life was the wrath she would face if she messed up a mission. The second greatest threat was her own big mouth. But Aphra had long ago learned that she couldn't stop herself from mouthing off if she tried; so she didn't bother trying. Besides, if he murdered her for talking, at least she'd die feeling the adrenaline-fueled hilarity of _whoops, went too far that time_ , instead of the icky sinking feeling of real failure.

"Sorry, O Great Lord Mr. Vader. Totally understandable, though."

Vader's voice was cold. "I did not hire you to second-guess me, but to obey my orders precisely. You do not need to understand."

"Sure thing, sir Vader. Just like I don't need to know what this proton gun's for. Not like we'll be landing in parts unknown and having to use it today." She clicked the last few parts into place and paused to admire her handiwork, turning it over in her hands. It was in pristine condition; she'd barely even had to dust its components off. But who knew how it would handle? This model had been discontinued for its erratic performance. For all she knew, maybe they needed something erratic right now.

Vader crossed the room to the window and stared out at the stars.

"This is not revenge," he said, more to the window than to her. "It began as that. But it transpires that there are other goals. Older. When we find Luke Skywalker, revenge will not be our objective."

"Really?" Aphra played idly with the proton gun's settings, flicking it from _kill_ to _kill more_ to _absolutely shred everything_ and back again. "Up to you, boss. But don't you think, uh, Tarkin would have wanted a little revenge? As a treat?"

Vader's hand tightened into a fist, and for a second she was sure she'd really gone too far. She held her breath. Then she decided that if Vader was going to choke her, there was no point starting the process _for_ him. Aphra breathed. She flicked the gun's settings back and forth with nervous fingers.

"He would roll in his grave at the current plan," Vader said at last, lower than ever. "If he had one. But he will not be the first person I have had to disappoint."

He turned and swept out of the room without looking at her. Aphra sagged back against the wall and let out a sigh of relief, which was not nearly the first since Vader recruited her, and which she was sure would be far from the last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am sorry for being (comparatively) slow with this fic. Turns out switching between a whole bunch of POVs, most of which I've never written before, takes a lot of thought :D
> 
> Just one more to go after this.
> 
> Comments are love <3


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note 1: According to Rise of Skywalker, all the visions Kylo Ren had about Darth Vader were actually Palpatine in disguise. It is important to keep this in mind for comprehension purposes while reading the chapter! (Though it also makes everything much sadder if you think about it too long. 2-5 seconds, I would say, is ideal. Think about it longer than that at your own risk.)
> 
> Note 2: This chapter takes place some small amount of time before The Force Awakens.
> 
> Note 3: I, uh, changed the archive warnings to specify "Major Character Death" because oh yeah, I guess Tarkin is a major character in this series and there are two whole chapters in here about how dead he is and how Vader probably has feels about it. Oops. I have no idea why it took me that long to accept that I needed an archive warning, I'm just dense about this stuff sometimes. (Nobody else is going to die in the remainder of this fic.)

"Ren," said General Hux while Kylo Ren was trying to eat his dinner in peace, "I heard something that might be of interest to you."

"Nothing you say has ever been of interest to me, General."

Hux stood in the doorway with the kind of superior smirk that said he was up to something. A pair of standard-issue stun cuffs, for some reason, dangled from his hand like a string toy. "It's about Darth Vader."

Kylo frowned and looked up from his synthetic protein gel. Hux wasn't interested in Darth Vader the way Kylo was. Like every self-respecting person in the First Order, he enjoyed hearing about the Empire's glory days, but he had never had much patience for its mystical side. His eyes often visibly glazed over during Kylo and Snoke's spiritual discussions. Even though the Empire and First Order were ruled by the wielders of the Dark Side, Hux preferred to research the more mundane luminaries of Imperial history. The men who had built the weapons, commanded the armies, and so on.

Kylo found it hard to believe that Hux, in the process of researching such men, could have stumbled across anything about Darth Vader that Kylo didn't know. Kylo had already obsessively tracked down all the artifacts of Vader's that he could. He regularly studied and communed with them. He and Snoke had deep conversations about Vader's legacy and what it meant to be his heir. Sometimes Kylo heard Vader's voice in his head, or even saw him in visions. Kylo's family had tried to hide from him that he was Vader's grandson, but once the news reached him, he'd more than made up for lost time.

It was much more likely, given the look on Hux's face, that this was a trap.

"What could you possibly have learned about Darth Vader," said Kylo, "that you think I don't know?"

"Well, the topic came up when I was talking to General Pryde. Your method of consulting approved sources leaves a few things out, I think. Some details, you only hear when you come out of your room and mingle with people who were there at the time. Or were you already aware of the rumors about Vader's love life?"

Kylo dropped his spoon to the table with a clatter and pushed back his chair.

"He had none," Kylo snapped. "From the time of his fall to the end of his life, Darth Vader was a perfect vessel for the Dark Side, free of all weaknesses, conflicts, or attachments. Any man who suggests otherwise is either sowing suspicion for his own purposes or jealous."

Hux raised an eyebrow. "Then how do you suggest he made Luke Skywalker and your mother?"

Kylo had taken off his helmet to eat, and that meant it was visible when his face turned red. He hastily pulled the helmet back on, and his voice took on its deeper modulated tone. "They were conceived when he was still a Jedi. When he fell to the Dark Side, he left behind all such weaknesses."

"How would you even know? You weren't there."

Kylo had learned that if he said _because he is a voice in my head and he said so_ , people looked at him funny. He was sullenly silent as he tried to figure out a different answer, or, failing that, some sufficiently cutting remark that would make Hux go away.

"Pryde heard a lot about this topic in his day," Hux continued. "It was common knowledge that Vader was openly in a carnal relationship with one of the foremost Imperial moffs. Not that you'd know who those are. It got to the point where people would complain because their affair was affecting military resources, fleet operations, and government operational schedules. And Vader was known to have other lovers as well. Think of our hotshot TIE pilots, like Major Baron Vonreg, and the way women flock to them. It was like that, in certain specialized circles. But that's not the best part."

Kylo grabbed the nearest thing at hand, which was the chair next to his own. He would throw it if necessary. "Pryde has fed you lies and you are too stupid to tell them from the truth. My grandfather would never have engaged in such decadence. If anyone had been foolish enough to ask for a carnal relationship with Darth Vader, he would simply have killed them."

Both Snoke and Vader had been very clear on this point. Attachments were anathema to the Force. The one personal attachment Darth Vader had ever allowed himself was a desire to befriend his own son, and that seemingly innocent attachment had cost everything. If Kylo Ren was to continue Vader's legacy, he could not make the same mistakes.

Hux scratched his nose with the hand that was holding the shock cuffs. "I think you're just jealous that women don't flock to _you_ that way."

"That is ridiculous."

His face below the mask burned more than ever. Actually, Hux was wrong; plenty of women liked Kylo Ren that way. He'd never done anything about it but he'd noticed. Sensing emotions through the Force could be awkward that way. All the people who felt such feelings were fools, fundamentally misunderstanding his nature. The only correct way to appreciate a Dark Lord was to fear him.

Besides, attachments were dangerous.

Hux leaned forward. "I note you haven't thrown me out yet. And you haven't asked about the best part."

Kylo's grip on the back of the chair tightened, cracking the metal. "If it will remove you from my hair for the day, General, what exactly is this best part?"

"Well, you're aware of the nature of Lord Vader's injuries."

"Of course I'm aware," Kylo snapped. If Hux didn't get to the point he might throw this chair after all.

"He couldn't take off that famous armor, because it was also life support. So he couldn't have sex in the normal way. According to the rumors, Vader's interests lay in... alternative styles."

For a moment Kylo froze between the urge to choke Hux to death for speaking so freely about Darth Vader's anatomy, and the fact that he actually had no idea what Hux was talking about. He was contradicting himself now, wasn't he? Someone couldn't _both_ have a carnal relationship _and_ be incapable of sex. Kylo wasn't even sure what the word _alternative_ was supposed to...

Oh.

The restraints dangling from Hux's outstretched fingers suddenly made sense.

"That's not a real thing," Kylo objected. "That's a thing people do in porn vids, that's not a thing people actually _do._ "

"What rock _did_ you grow up under, Ren?" Hux demanded. "Was there nothing under it but black robes and platitudes about the Dark Side? Of course it's a thing people do. And I'm sure using the Force helped, somehow."

"Get out," said Kylo.

Hux raised the pair of shock cuffs invitingly. "Haven't you ever wanted to try it? A little discipline might do you good, Ren."

Kylo threw the chair at him.

Hux was at least marginally combat trained. He dodged backwards, throwing out an arm to protect his head; the chair crashed against his forearm. Both chair and cuffs clattered to the floor. Like the pest he was, Hux proceeded to scuttle out of the room.

"It's no wonder women don't flock to you if that's your attitude," he called as the door closed behind him.

Kylo looked down. Hux propositioning him, as a joke or otherwise, was clearly unacceptable. Maybe he should tell Snoke. But it was even odds what Snoke would do: punish Hux for the breach of boundaries, punish Kylo for not dealing with it more effectively, or simply laugh at them both. Snoke liked when Kylo was unhappy. That was a necessary part of Dark Side training.

Waving shock cuffs in Kylo's face was ridiculous anyway. What was he supposed to do with them? Kylo had never needed to slap prisoners into physical restraints; if he wanted restraint, he could simply grab an opponent with the Force and...

Oh. Oh, no, now he was _picturing it._

He was definitely not telling Snoke.

Kylo turned toward the door. "You're a liar!" he shouted, even though Hux would be out of earshot by now. "You're seditious against our Imperial Founding Fathers _and_ a liar!" He sent another chair uselessly crashing in that direction for good measure.

It did not make him feel any better. He pulled off his helmet, set it with a thunk down on the table, and took an angry bite of his protein gel, which had gone cold. He chewed and swallowed anyway, growling to himself.

He left the shock cuffs where they were on the floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Annnnnd we're done! Wheee!
> 
> This fic was a fun exercise in different POVs/characters/styles of snarkiness and I enjoyed it. Thanks for following along! I hope all of you also had fun.
> 
> Speaking of "popularly requested spinoffs from Playing With Fire," I've also been working on an AU where Tarkin survives! (Though, um, it's not that much LESS angsty than the one where he dies.) So the 3 of you who weren't already aware of that can find it [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23110756/chapters/55295734). Yay!
> 
> *spins in a circle*


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